


Punching Bags and Tea

by Bouzingo



Series: Red Cashmere Sweater. [3]
Category: Marvel
Genre: 1990s, Baking, Child Soldiers, Cooking, Gen, Hospitalization, Injury, Natasha is a teenager, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha finishes Jurassic Park in this one. Also; meeting Peggy Carter, recovery setbacks, and heart to hearts with Nick Fury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punching Bags and Tea

The woman that comes with Clint one Sunday has snow white hair and kind eyes. Natasha looks at her, and looks at Clint.

 

“Ms. Carter is an old friend,” Clint says, and the reverence in his voice is unmistakable. Natasha looks at the old woman again, who smiles carefully but freely.

 

“Hullo Natasha,” she says. “You can call me Peggy. Clint has told me so much about you.”

 

“Only good things, I promise,” Clint says. Natasha bites her lip, unsure of what to say to this new person.

 

“I wanted to bring my famous chocolate cookies, but Clint told me you would prefer it if I prepared them here while you watched,” Peggy says. Natasha nods in confirmation, though she wonders how strange that preference sounds to this new person. “Smart girl. You don’t see such caution these days.”

 

Natasha decides that she likes Peggy, who talks pleasantly and at an acceptable volume and doesn’t mind that Natasha doesn’t return her conversation.

 

“Clint tells me you’re here from Russia,” Peggy says, gesturing to the eggs and holding up two fingers. Natasha passes them to her and smiles. “It must be a very difficult move. I’ve been living in America for forty years and it’s still very strange. Clint, do you have vanilla?”

 

Clint passes the small bottle to Peggy while Natasha watches intently to make sure she doesn’t switch it. Her paranoia about food has been relatively new; she can’t eat anything she hasn’t had before and she has to be present for all preparation. She doesn’t know anymore than her guardians why she’s starting to be this way, and it scares her sometimes.

 

But Peggy is making it fun. She’s brought two different kinds of chocolate chips in bags that are still sealed. She doesn’t seem to mind when Natasha points to the semi-sweet immediately, not even sparing the white ones a glance.

 

They go into the oven and Natasha only leaves when Peggy does, content that the cookies won’t be tampered with as long as nobody’s in the kitchen.

 

Peggy knows sign language, and has been exchanging signs with Clint the entire time she’s been here. Natasha knows only a few signs comparatively, but doesn’t feel left out of the conversation, even though she doesn’t really contribute, really doesn’t like to communicate in any way with strangers until she’s determined their benevolence.

 

“I’ll get the cookies,” Clint says, getting up. Natasha nods. She’s all right with being in the same room as Peggy. Peggy smiles gently and opens her mouth to say something, just as something explodes outside and Natasha overturns the coffee table and reaches for where her gun should be and then panics when she doesn’t find it.

 

“Oh god, okay,” she hears Clint’s voice through a fog and breathes harsh through her nose and makes a couple of hand gestures for him to get down. “That was someone’s car backfiring, Natasha, there’s no danger.”

 

“Where’s my gun?” she yells, panic sending her voice to a higher register. “Where the fuck did you put my gun?”

 

“Natasha, you don’t have a gun,” Clint says, inching closer. “It’s been nearly a year and you don’t have a gun, okay?”

 

Natasha’s breath won’t come steady and controlled. Frustrated, she punches her own forearm hard enough to bruise and then hides her face, trying to count down from twenty, trying not to cry.

 

“Hey, Natasha, it’s okay,” Clint says. He has a very calming voice, when he wants to, free of the stress tells Natasha can usually detect. “Let’s get you off the ground, okay?”

 

On the couch, with her sweater and eyes cast to the ground, Natasha feels a little better. Peggy, who hasn’t been exhibiting any signs of stress or anger or frustration this entire visit, sits beside her, and it should feel intrusive but it doesn’t. Clint leaves quickly to get the cookies, which Natasha can smell through the rush of iron in her nose.

 

“You are very brave,” Peggy says. Natasha shakes her head and hides her face in her hands.

 

“It’s only getting worse,” she mumbles.

 

“It gets worse before it gets better. But it does get better. I promise you that,” Peggy says gently.

 

Natasha wants to believe her, so badly. So she nods gingerly and accepts the warm cookie Clint gives her.

 

“I’ll call the school. We can stay home and watch cartoons tomorrow,” Clint says.

 

“I have a group project,” Natasha says, swallowing drily. “It’s for geography.”

 

“Okay,” Clint says. “Well if you want to come home after geography, that’s all right too, okay?”

 

Natasha nods.

 

Peggy doesn’t stay for very long after. It’s her niece’s birthday soon, and she wants to drop by for presents and dinner with her younger sister.

 

“Say hi to Sharon for me. How old is she this year?” Clint says, getting Peggy’s coat.

 

“Oh, she’s turning eleven. It’s a big year for her,” Peggy smiles. “She wants to get her ears pierced, but Amanda has put her foot down. That’s a teenager sort of gift apparently. I’ll see you later, Natasha. Perhaps we can bake again.”

 

Natasha nods stiffly, and when Peggy’s finally gone, she draws her knees to her chest. The dreams are less now, but increasing paranoia and flashbacks seem to have filled the void they left.

 

Natasha missed a week of school and they were told she had the flu when in fact she was lying in bed and convinced that she was hemorrhaging from some sort of failsafe in her veins. It was her first period. Clint gave her the talk, promised her she wasn’t the only one who menstruated, and Natasha went back to school.

 

Natasha has managed to keep her friends, but she is always turning down invitations to sleepovers and shopping at the mall; the most extracurricular activity she can muster has to stay within the school walls. That means chess club and tutoring for English, in which she is finally showing improvement.

 

Natasha finished _Jurassic_ _Park_ after nearly a year, and was so proud, even if she tried to hide it. After finishing the book, she hasn’t called herself stupid nearly as often as she used to.

 

And then Clint gets hurt, and Natasha can’t live in the SHIELD safe house anymore. She sits beside Clint in the hospital, wearing the red cashmere sweater and just her schoolbooks in her bag. There are armed guards outside, two that she can see.

 

“You’re quiet,” Clint says, voice hoarse but still amused. Natasha looks at him.

 

“You’re hurt,” she says. “And they said I can’t go back to the house.”

 

“Just for a little bit. Until I get better,” Clint says.

 

“Until they can secure the house,” Natasha says, and Clint purses his lips. “Or until they can find who attacked you. Was it…?”

 

“They don’t know yet, Natasha. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay? You’re going to be safe,” Clint says, and looks at Natasha. “No harm’s going to come to you. I promise.”

 

“Harm came to you,” Natasha whispers, brow knotting up. Clint doesn’t realize she’s crying until tears start rolling down her cheeks.

 

“Hey, hey,” he says. “I’ve had worse. And this isn’t because of you, all right? It’s my work. Things will be back to normal soon.”

 

“Okay,” Natasha says. She doesn’t stop crying until Coulson comes in.

 

“Hi Natasha,” he says in a hushed, soothing tone that both Clint and Natasha tense up to. “We have your stuff from the safe house.”

 

“Are you taking me somewhere,” Natasha says, rubbing her face until her eyes are dry.

 

“Safest place you can be,” Coulson promises. Natasha holds her hand up in goodbye before following Coulson.

 

The car ride is predictably silent. Coulson always lets Natasha choose the station and today she doesn’t want any music at all. They pull up in front of a nice house with well-kept flowers out front, and two or three security cameras to Natasha’s immediate perception. She hoists her bag from the back of the seat and walks up with Coulson.

 

“Good afternoon,” Nick Fury says. “You’ll be staying with me for a while.”

 

\--

 

Nick Fury has no sisters or brothers, or children, but he knows what to do to soothe a pain of a soldier tangled in sleep and lost in their dreams.

 

Natasha bites the pillow as she sleeps, screaming between grit teeth and clawing at the mattress. Nick had no idea the dreams were this bad, realizes while he slowly wakes up Natasha that it must be the change in locale.

 

“Natasha,” he says in a low voice. “I am Nick Fury and you’re safe in my home. The date is April 3rd, 1999, and you are safe.”

 

“Where’s Clint,” Natasha says, when her eyes open and the haze clears from them.

 

“Hospital, you’re at my home,” Nick reiterates. “I am Nick Fury and you’re safe here.”

 

Natasha nods, and gets up from the bed, reaching for her sweater impulsively. She pulls it on and then turns on a light. Her hands are shaking.

 

“Do you want a tea or a coffee?” Nick says. “That generally calms me after an episode.”

 

Natasha crosses her arms and looks at the wall, lips screwed up to one side of her face.

 

“I don’t know you,” she says. “And you don’t know me. Leave me alone.”

 

“I will not abide suffering in my home,” Nick says. “Now, we don’t have to say anything, and if you don’t need anything from me, then that’s all right, but I want to stay here until you’re more comfortable.”

 

“I’ll be more comfortable when you _leave_ ,” Natasha whispers. They fall into silence, and Natasha draws her legs up to her chest. Nick watches her, and then sighs.

 

“I was a little older than you when I started having problems sleeping,” he says. “That was a while ago, and I thought I could figure it out alone too. And when people tried to offer their help, I pushed them away. Sometimes I still do, but my days are better because I started to accept that I needed help.”

 

“You talk to the psychiatrist,” Natasha says. “And he tells you what you want to hear, that I am like you and that I can be helped. Kindness is wasted on me.”

 

“Barton is one of my best agents. I wouldn’t have spent the last several months keeping him out of the field with you if I had even the slightest doubt that you could be helped,” Fury says.

 

Natasha makes a frustrated sound.

 

“I would understand if you,” she says, and trails off before finally blurting out, “if you were keeping me for your agency. If you needed me for a mission.”

 

“You’re a kid,” Nick says. “We don’t do that here.”

 

“I am a soldier,” Natasha says. “And when I am finally the age that this country finds acceptable for soldiers and spies, I know you’ll want me back. Even when I’m getting _fat_ and _soft_ and _unfocused_...”

 

Her crossed arms hold her together, but she’s shaking. If Nick wasn’t sure that touch would put her in another, worse headspace, he would have hugged her.

 

“I swear to you,” he says. “And you don’t have to believe me now, but I promise you are not beholden to SHIELD in any way, not now and not when you’re an adult.”

 

Natasha shakes her head, propels herself off the bed. She has the eyes of a caged animal, eyes that Nick has seen in the mirror once too often.

 

“Come with me,” he says. “I’m going to show you something.”

 

Natasha works the punching bags until she’s sweating and half-asleep on her feet. She walks back to the bed and sleeps through the rest of the night.

 

The next day she goes to see Clint at the hospital.

 

“You should be at school,” he says.

 

“There was a field trip,” Natasha says. “I didn’t want to go.”

 

“You all right?” Clint asks. “You look like you haven’t slept much.”

 

“I slept fine,” Natasha says, averting his gaze. “I’m not used to the other house.”

 

Clint nods, and stretches the arm that’s not in a cast experimentally. There’s a couple bruises and an IV in his wrist. When he sees Natasha’s look, he sets his arm by his side again.

 

“It’s okay,” he says, “Just stuff for the pain.”

 

“I’m not a child,” Natasha says.

 

“Yeah you are,” Clint grins, “especially when you say you’re not.”

 

“Ugh,” Natasha groans, but can’t quite hide the smile that perks at her lips

 

\--

 

Tea with Peggy Carter has been a longheld tradition for decades, by now. She puts two sugar cubes in Nick’s tea and a bit of lemon in her own, and then hands him his cup.

 

“She’s doing very well,” she promises. “For someone of her age and experiences, I would not have expected her to be back in school. You did the right thing in stabilizing her situation as soon as possible, instead of leaving her to the foster system.”

 

“Is she right?” Nick asks. “Am I grooming her to be loyal to SHIELD?”

 

“You’ve certainly not indicated any such plan to me,” Peggy says. “Nick, when Clint made a different call, when he spared her that night, your first instinct was to protect her, not exploit her.”

 

“Her safety was contingent on the information she gave us,” Nick says, massaging his temples. He feels a headache coming on and even the tea’s not doing anything to quell it.

 

“She offered that information first,” Peggy says. “I know you would have kept her safe even if she had nothing to offer.”

 

“You can’t know that,” Nick says.

 

“I know that because I trained you,” Peggy says firmly. “Drink your tea. It’s a wonder you need to shave that head of yours with all that hair pulling, dear.”

 

He manages a couple of mouthfuls of tea before he sets down the cup.

 

“What if she does come back to SHIELD?” he asks. “What am I supposed to say if she decides she’s going to be an operative even after all… that?”

 

“I’ll trust that you do the right thing,” Peggy says candidly. “I’ve watched you long enough to know that you will. And I don’t know Natasha very well, but I believe her capable of doing the right thing as well. Continue with her care, Nicholas. Don’t worry yourself about the decisions she makes five or six years down the line. We all have our reasons for the decisions we make.”

 

Drinking tea with Peggy Carter is one of the few constants in Nick’s life. When he comes back home, he sets the ingredients for tonight’s dinner out and waits for Natasha to come home from the hospital after school.

 

Natasha watches him prepare, as is her want, and it’s mostly a wordless affair. But it’s strangely comforting to them both.

 

After a few days, the safe house is found to be safe again and Clint is largely mobile. They move Natasha back as soon as they can.

 

"So, living with Nick Fury," Clint says, smiling as he sinks into his ottoman. "That must have been a hardship."

 

"He was all right. He has punching bags," Natasha says.


End file.
